This weekend, Worthless Genius posted a contest where participants could win a Google Wave and Google Voice invite. Quite a few people entered, but in the end, there were only three winners:

• Max Marroni
• Bob
• Jed Koops

The winners were chosen with the super-scientific MySQL query shown here:

SELECT comment_author, comment_author_email FROM `wp_comments` WHERE comment_post_ID = 1465 ORDER BY rand() LIMIT 3

Congratulations to the winners, your invites are on the way. Thanks to all those who participated, and stay tuned to Worthless Genius for future giveaways.

It’s that time again!  Worthless Genius has 3 Google Wave invites + 3 Google Voice invites to give away.  That’s right, it’s free!

All you have to do is comment on this thread and tell me who your favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle was out of the group.  Keep this to the original 4 please, as far as I’m concerned Venus doesn’t count.

3 lucky winners will each receive both a Google Wave and a Google Voice invite.  That’s like having double candy for Halloween!

What are you waiting for?  Enter already!

Comments on this post will be disabled at 12:00AM (Midnight) Eastern Time on Sunday, November 1st. The three lucky winners will be announced on Monday, November 2nd.

Entries have been closed, and the winners will be announced later today (11/2/09). Thank you to all who participated!

A few weeks ago, something happened to me that makes geeks the world over scream with happiness: my cell phone contract had reached its end with my previous carrier.  To normal folk, this might not seem like that exciting of an occasion, but to the geek species, this is almost like having a second birthday.

Suddenly faced with a decision that will once again lock me into 2 years of ridiculous fees, unchanging phone hardware and the prospect that I would have to use yet another phone that I would not enjoy, I decided to shop around instead of going with the only local carrier with decent coverage here in my area.

I said goodbye to US Cellular, and went out into the world to find a carrier/phone combo that met my needs.  Each one of the providers had a major flaw, but I decided I had to look past that flaw in order to find a device that was exactly what I needed.

So, Sprint became the clear choice, regardless of the fact that they do not have a retail store in our area.  Now to decide which phone I wanted to use.

Palm Pre vs. HTC Hero

I had whittled the choice down to two major competitors: the Palm Pre and the HTC Hero.  Both are great phones, and have solid app stores with a multitude of applications that could compliment my everyday workflow.

The final choice came down to some news I heard a little while back from the Linux Computer Action Show.  It turns out that the Palm Pre allegedly radios back with possibly identifying information to the Palm mother ship.  Whether or not this is true is a moot point, as the negative press was enough to derail me from making that decision as a consumer.

Win goes to HTC and Google for not being evil.

I have been lusting after an iPhone since the day Steve Jobs walked onto the stage and announced that Apple was going to revolutionize the phone industry.  The idea of having a small all-in-one device that I could carry around spoke to the core of my geek soul.  Since Apple is tidally locked with AT&T into the foreseeable future, and AT&T gets absolutely no reception at my home, the iPhone was completely disqualified as a choice.

For almost just as long, hearing the news about Google’s Linux-based phone OS venture got me frothing at the mouth.  I had never played with an Android phone (compared to the long periods I would stand in Wal-Mart and play with the iPhone), so I wasn’t sure what I was getting into.

The reviews for the HTC Hero seemed to be not as great as I had hoped, but in the interest of shininess, I made the leap, and purchased the phone with a plan from Sprint.

The Plan

Sprint seems to have some spectacular phone plans.  When compared to the archaic terms of service at US Cellular, you would think that I was trading in my Yugo for a 2010 Subaru WRX STI.

I won’t belabor the point of the specifics of my plan, but let’s just say that it’s cheap and provides me with more than I could ever need.  I don’t talk on my phone much (I’ve used 3 minutes since I started the contract on October 16th), so the Unlimited 450 plan was just right for me.

And when they say unlimited, it appears they mean unlimited:

1. Unlimited Nights & Weekends – Starting at 7pm
2. Unlimited Calls to Any Cell Phone – Regardless of Carrier
3. Unlimited Roaming
4. Unlimited Data

Man, what could be better than that?

The Setup

I got my phone three days after signing up online, and unboxed it with 3 hours ahead of me of play time.  This is when the snags started.

The Hero has an automatic setup procedure that registers the phone to your number, contacts the Sprint servers and gets everything setup without your intervention.  Sounds great in theory.  But it failed.

It failed over and over.  I hopped on Sprint’s Customer Support website and began a chat with a representative in order to get this straightened out.  They quickly walked me through manually registering the phone with the network, and I was up and running in about 25 minutes.

One major snag – I was roaming at my house.  Well, this turned out to not be a snag at all, due to the Unlimited Roaming provided with my plan.  Sweet!

The Phone

The HTC Hero is a solid piece of electronics.  Its weight is just right, and it feels rugged.  Though the touch screen does get a bit greasy due to my overly sweaty hands, a few minutes in an empty pocket at walking speed erases the smudges without a trace.

The display is absolutely gorgeous.  The colors are bright and crisp, and there doesn’t seem to be any delay in graphics when animations are present.

The custom HTC “Sense” UI tacked onto Android is quite lovely, and does give the interface a slick, professional feeling.

The camera is so extremely awesome, it’s hard to put into words.  This handset packs a 5MP digital camera with auto adjustments.  It does lack a flash, which makes taking low-light pictures difficult, but in full-light situations, it is remarkable.

The phone also packs a WiFi receiver (which is great coupled with Google Voice and my home network), a GPS receiver and a digital compass.

Android 1.5

One of the best possible things for me to have in a phone is a way to sync my daily life and carry it around in my pocket.  I am constantly in need of a good to-do list manager, a calendar, my email and various other pieces of functionality.

And, since I use Google already for everything under the sun, using an Android phone simply makes sense.  Google has provided built-in applications and widgets for the majority of their cloud-based services, including:

• Gmail
• Google Voice
• Google Calendar
• Google Contacts
• Google Talk

Once you get your Android phone up and running, simply logging into a Google service will get you started syncing your entire online life.  Now all of my Google Calendar events are constantly up-to-date, so I can truly know where I need to be and when.  This is invaluable to someone who is as forgetful as I am, and allows me to easily make appointments without having to worry about whether or not I agreed to a previous engagement during that time slot.

Since I started using Google Voice, I have been paying more attention to keeping my Google Contacts in good form, and boy has that load of work paid off.  Your Google Contacts are used as the phone’s central contact list, including phone numbers, addresses, email addresses and even the personal profile image of the contact.

When I decide to make a call, I get a prompt asking me if I would like to make the call over Google Voice, or over the cell network.  This is a handy feature that would potentially allow me to cut down on the minutes I use in my plan—but is wasted on me due to my very low talk time.

Gmail is integrated into every aspect of Android.  If I take a photo, I can easily hit the “Share” button in the photo viewing application and quickly send it through email.  And what’s great about the ubiquity of Gmail on this platform is that all contact information is pulled from your central Contacts data, giving you auto complete address lookup.

I have to say that I think Android is a home run when it comes to “Smart Phone” operating systems.

The Apps

The reason I had the Pre, Android and iPhone in the running to be my next phone was due to the concept of 3rd party applications.  The phone itself provides quite a few great applications that I use constantly, but there are always some itches that just can’t be scratched by one company alone.

I’ve been using Evernote for a while now, and rely on it on a daily basis to keep my brain from turning to complete mush.  It helps me keep track of reference information for projects, and also allows me to defer reading material until I have the proper amount of time to absorb the information.  Imagine my glee when just before buying my new Android phone Evernote announces a Beta app for Android.  It’s still very much on the Beta side of things, but it gives me access to search and read my notes, which is enough for now.

I’m also a Twitter user, and I went back and forth between several Twitter apps, and ended up landing on Peep, HTC’s built-in Twitter client.  It does pretty much everything I need in one nice little app.

Occasionally, I’ll also want to update my Facebook status, and the default Facebook App works like a charm.

And the list of apps that I use wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the one app that keeps me on the right track: Remember The Milk.  The Android RTM app is the most used app on my phone.  It allows you to set a location for a task, and will give you a notification if you are within a certain (user configurable) distance from that location based upon your GPS data.  This is ingenious, and allows me to confidently go to Wal-Mart and know that I’m not going to forget to purchase the E.L. Fudge cookies that my wife is craving.

In addition to location-aware tasks, RTM integrates with Google Calendar.  This gives me the ability to view and edit my tasks in both applications, and I can easily know what’s ahead for the next few days.

Issues

The first few days I used my new Hero, and I was surprised at how quickly the battery drained with normal use.  After doing a little digging, I came to find out that this wasn’t just me, but apparently it’s a bug in the default Notifications app, which lets you know when you receive a text message.  The application, once invoked, refuses to the let the phone sleep, and consequently it is active 100% of the time, drastically reducing the per-charge lifetime of your battery.

The workaround is easy, since I have a Google Voice account.  I have simply given out my Voice number to everyone, and now only receive calls and text messages through Voice.  Once I shut down the Notifications app, and removed the chance for someone to send me a text directly to my new cell number, my battery life has become remarkably better.

The second issue I have is the lack of WPA2 Enterprise support with the WiFi adapter.  It appears that the phone itself can connect to these types of networks, but there is currently no UI which supports logging in with the credentials needed.  An alternative method exists, but requires you to “root” your phone, which I don’t think I’m comfortable with at this point.  This means that I’m stuck with the Sprint network for surfing the web at school.

Lastly, Android 1.6 (Donut) has been out for a while now, but no update has been provided from Sprint or HTC.  BUT this is cancelled out by the announcement that Android 2.0 (Eclair) is on its way in the not-too-distant future, and HTC has publicly stated that it will be coming to the Hero.

Conclusion

iPhone?  What’s that?  Never heard of it.

I’ve only spent a few weeks with this device, but I can already see a long-term relationship between Android and myself.  And there is lots of love going on.  Man, that sounded a lot more innocent in my head.

If you have a chance to buy an Android phone, don’t hesitate.  I’ll post some updates with any new apps that I come across that are useful.

Recently, Frostburg State University’s Center for Creative Writing held a community writing contest which focused on short “Spooky Stories”.

It’s been a long while since I’ve written something creative, so I thought I would make an attempt at this contest without regard for the prize. So, I set out and wrote this story in about 2 hours.

My wonderful wife also wrote a very exciting and subtle story for this contest. I think, for me at least, the knowledge that we were both working toward the same goal excited me, and made each keystroke that much more meaningful.

So, this past week was the due date, and I submitted both of our stories for the contest. Hit the jump to read my story, and feel free to leave comments.

Gah!!

Every creative person before me has identified and dealt with a little issue that I’m going to call Writer’s Guilt.  Writers Guilt occurs in two distinct–yet definitely intertwined–forms.

It occurs to me that everyone with a creative pursuit must go through this ordeal and come away making a choice in either direction.  I have yet to make that choice, and end up doing 50% on both sides of the coin, rather than picking one and going full force.

What can I do about this?  Let’s first identify the two sides of the story, then we’ll do a little research to find out what ways other writers suggest to get past this social and personal road block.

The Guilt of Writing

Every person out there who writes feels exhilarated by the experience of creating, and can be invigorated in their life through the creative process.  Often, when a writer gets into the “zone”, the outside world winks out, and all that is left is oneself and his craft.

This is a magical feeling that only some can achieve, and requires much time and dedication to extract oneself from the hustle and bustle of the modern world.  Admittedly, this is one of the hardest ends to achieve for myself.  Once it is achieved, though, the writer finds himself in a wonderful situation where thoughts flow freely and without bound.

Time tends to disappear for a writer in this state, and nothing seems to matter.  Eating, sleeping, exercise and social interaction become a thing of the past, not needed for this evolved animal with his lofty mental state and ideas.

The solitary writer may have no obligations to the outside world, which would mean that the guilt of writing weighs less heavily on his psyche.  But for the rest of us with families, careers, school, and friends, this state of perfect concentration can be a major drawback.

The cat litter isn’t going to clean itself, and you really should enjoy your child’s company while he is still in awe of the vast unknown world.  Homework needs attention, and that Financial Accounting Exam isn’t going to complete itself.

Quickly, a writer can find himself in the sticky situation of leaving his craft at a time of high-level attachment in order to re-enter the human society and complete the social contracts that he has built during his life.

So, like a good citizen, the writer goes back to the world of the conscious and makes an effort to become more attached to society.

This switch doesn’t come without a price, of course.

The Guilt of Not Writing

Perhaps an even stronger negative emotion, the guilt of not writing seeps into a writer’s everyday life and sometimes keeps his mind from focusing on the material work at hand.  While the guilt of writing can be psychologically draining on both the creator and his social connections, the guilt of not writing lands on the shoulder of the writer alone.

In my experience, the more time I spend away from blogging or creative writing, the more I feel like I’m going nowhere.  It’s a really tough feeling that must be experienced in order to be truly appreciated.  The fiction stories aren’t going to be read if they aren’t first written.  That just doesn’t do the materials justice.

A nagging part of the writer’s subconscious begins working overtime, causing half-hearted attempts at real world pursuits.  A seemingly basic human adaptation, this nagging voice attempts to draw the creator back to the material in any way possible.

REM sleep becomes filled not with dreams about eating giant pillows, but of skewed stressful events of the past.  This is similar to that ubiquitous high school dream of showing up for a presentation in front of the class sans-pants.  Most of the time when I’m stressed out subconsciously, I don’t notice until I have a dream where I am in high school and the normal stresses of living in cliques and the sweaty palm experience of courting that unobtainable beauty seep vividly into my sleep.

The concept of feeling guilty over an ethereal process such as writing makes me wonder what evolutionary value the creative process has for our species.  If one views the creative process as a means to achieve the 4 necessities of life, maybe then it becomes less about the act of creating and more about the profitability of the act.  This can lead to all kinds of disappointment and self esteem complexes.

When the writer finally returns to his craft after a long period in the real world, it takes some time to oil the hinges and push the rusted door of creativity open once again.

Balance

The easiest thing to do to quell these guilty feelings is to strike some sort of balance between work, life and play.  That’s easier said than done.

It’s a cop out to simply say that you need balance in your life and all happiness will then follow.  This may be true; but it’s of no societal value to state this fact and not back up the concept with any ideas for achieving that balance.

Schedule Time to Write

This sounds great in concept, but I personally have problems with keeping on task during any kind of scheduled activity.  Many articles have been written about cultivating a time to set aside to write, but I have yet to put that into practice.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield mentions that even an “amateur” creator needs to schedule time to create as if it were their day-to-day job.  Once again, this idea is very romantic for me, but I have a tough time dealing with distractions when I set down to do my work.

Separation of States

The idea of separation of states comes to me as keeping things separate in your life while attempting to balance them.  This means to put yourself 100% into whichever state you are in, creative or social.

I find that I often come up with my best ideas when I am in a social state, and I think the key to using this dichotomy is to have a way to quickly and easily record your ideas in a way that you can access at a later time.

I use Evernote extensively in this quest, but I have shed a few other methods in the past that haven’t quite worked for me.  I have two Moleskine notebooks on me at all times in an attempt to remember everything I possibly can.

That system worked for a while, but even though the notebooks are in my side pocket at all times, I still tend to forget they are there.  This makes it hard to ensure that I will in fact check the thoughts that I’ve written down, and it ends up being a waste of energy to carry them around.

But potentially, this separation could provide much needed sandboxing, allowing your ideas to flow naturally, and putting you in a situation to really put the pedal to the metal.

Any Ideas?

I have yet to find a solution that works for me, but hopefully you have a system in place that makes sense to you.  I would like to hear what system you have in place, and the tools that are needed to keep that system running.  So, post a comment, and let’s see what you’ve got.

Jupiter Broadcasting, the group of guys behind the Linux Computer Action Show, CastaBlasta and a range of other great internet entertainment announced a few months ago that they were giving away a Popcorn Hour media player to one lucky YouTube subscriber.

They announced the winner on Friday:

And that lucky winner was…Me! I’m super excited about this great prize for several reasons.

Currently, we consume our movies and television shows on my wife’s Macbook. This is a pretty great setup, but it can become a little uncomfortable at times. With the Popcorn Hour, we can now watch all of our media on the TV in our room. And I do mean ALL of our media:

• MPEG1/2/4
• MP3
• AVI
• ASF
• WMV
• MOV
• H.264
• XviD
• AAC
• WAV
• JPEG
• and more

We don’t own an HDTV, but this is thing is capable of pumping out 1080p signal. This will be great when we want to watch something over at my dad’s (he owns a GIANT Sony Bravia HDTV). Whereas previously we would have had to resample an AVI video and burn it to a DVD to experience it at my dad’s house, now I can throw a hard drive in the Popcorn Hour and lug it on down to his house.

I can’t wait to review this unit, and really get down in the trenches with its functionality.

So, thanks Bryan and Chris, you guys completely rock!

Shiny

The podcast that has been held so highly in my heart as the best podcast ever made, Mysterious Universe, has returned after a long hiatus.

There was some speculation about the return, when the website changed to show that things were ramping up, and now we’re finally being treated with brand new episodes.

So how does the new “season” of Mysterious Universe stack up to the classic?

Finally filling the void that was left behind by the first season of Mysterious Universe, season 2 comes in with a bang.  Three episodes have been released as of this writeup, and I have to say that it’s without a doubt on par or better than the original episodes.

Benjamin Grundy is now joined by a co-host, Aaron Wright, which is a bit of a change from the previous formula.  Though they claim this might take a while to get the dynamic down, I think their chemistry works in ways that I could not have imagined.  The two come from slightly different backgrounds which allows them to provide unique perspectives on the topics discussed.

I’ve listened to the first two episodes, and I have to say that I am enjoying this refresh of the original formula, and have accepted it without remorse.

The audio quality, as always, is top notch.  Mr. Grundy’s bass vocals give my car’s stereo a workout, and provide a haunting voice which goes along with the paranormal happenings like peanut butter and jam.  I couldn’t imagine listening to anyone else feeding my brain with wonder as he does.

The musical interludes are polished, and give you a bit of time to ponder the stories they covered in the previous section.  This is something that I wouldn’t logically think was entertaining, but it has proven to be completely worthwhile.

The Mysterious Universe team has provided us with an avenue to consume the past episodes and content in DVD form, but this collector’s item quickly sold out.  Sadly, this blogger didn’t act in time, and will have to go without the full back catalogue of this wonderful show.

Mr. Grundy assures us that there will be future opportunities for fans to get their sweaty palms on this past content, and I will be waiting anxiously for any announcements.  For now, I’ll have to stick with the content I can find elsewhere online; which is, at best, incomplete.

If you are a fan of the paranormal, UFO encounters, psychic phenomenon or haunting ghost stories, I whole-heartedly recommend subscribing to this podcast, and let your mind be blown away on a weekly basis.

What are you waiting for?  Head on over to Mysterious Universe and begin consuming!

Worthless Genius recently posted a contest to win a copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum for the PC.  Contest entrants were asked to leave a comment containing their favorite Batman villain for a chance to win this PC game.

The winner was chosen through a randomized MySQL query, pictured here:

Congrats, Raptor!

The winner of this much coveted prize is Raptor:

The Winning Comment

Congratulations to Raptor, and to all those who entered.

There were very few entries this time around, and this seems to be due to a DNS issue with Worthless Genius.  A few potential entrants noted that they could not reach the blog post, so I will have to be working with GoDaddy to attempt to get this sorted out.

Stay tuned everyone, there will be future contests here on Worthless Genius, so check back for your chance to win!

• Oh, Really?
  • Switching OS platforms started to become an issue.
• Sequestering
  • Information overload at its finest.
• To Dos
  • Getting started with GTD and attempting to get organized.
• Time-Delay Posting
  • Trying a regular schedule for blogging.
• Office Cleanup – Day 1
  • It took almost a year to actually get this done.
• Shiny New iPods
  • New iPod Nano models.  I was disappointed by the lack of great news, will I be disappointed once again this year?
• New Site Design
  • The blog to get a new design?  It hasn’t happened…yet.
• Benjamin James Strozykowski – 2 Years Old Today!
  • My son’s first two years on this planet.  We’re coming up on his 3rd birthday!

Just a few recently seen Yahoo Answers to bring your faith in humanity to its knees:

This person needs to have more babbies.

THIS IS FUNNY!

Just ask Cher.

Who is Helen Keller?

Who needs Geogography?

ZOMG! They found me out! my hand itches...

If you plan to have kids...YES!

Best Answer Yet!

Honestly...I don't even know what to say...

Some of these may not be real, to which I say: Comedy Gold. Otherwise, I truly fear for the future of we Homo Sapien Sapiens…